


"I was too in love to care"

by WeezlBot



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, but not really, kind of a joke fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:36:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeezlBot/pseuds/WeezlBot
Summary: Will and Annabeth don't want to go to bed, so they ask Chiron about his love life.It's a more interesting answer than they may have expected.





	"I was too in love to care"

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of somebody's headcanon. I think it was from Tumblr.

“Chiron?” Will asked. He had just walked in on Chiron and Annabeth hanging out in the living room of the Big House, Annabeth working, Chiron having a late cup of tea. Will and he had been talking for a little while.

“Yes, my boy?” 

“Have you ever been in love?”

Chiron sighed. Will thought he looked like he had aged a hundred years in one day. “I… that’s a long… that’s such a long story. I don’t think I could tell it.”

Will cocked his head. “I have all night. Don’t you?”

“Will…” Chiron groaned a little. 

“Yeah, Chiron,” Annabeth piled on, “we have all night. Besides, if you  _ didn’t  _ tell the story, we’d have to go back to our cabins and spend eight hours or nine suffering and crying from nightmares…” Her gunmetal-gray eyes were wide and shiny. 

“Okay, okay!” Chiron groaned, waving his hand dismissively. “But… I don’t want to tell it here. I need the… the fresh air. I need the beach.”

“Okay!” Will sprang up, Annabeth clapped her laptop closed and put it down and the three made the walk to the beach. 

Once they were there, Chiron sighed and stared out to sea. “I suppose now that you followed me all this way, I actually have to tell the story?”

“That’d be nice, yeah,” WIll responded. 

There was a long silence. Chiron shook his head. The dim light made the lines in his face even more prominent. “... It happened when I was young… and stupid. This was… even before I had started training demigods. Or wait, no, it was shortly after.  _ Very _ shortly after. I was already living almost entirely on my lonesome—well, with my demigods—in a little cave on an island too small to even deserve a name. It was close enough to mainland Greece so we could conceivably swim away from it if we had to, but far enough that no one really wanted to make the effort to swim to us, monsters included.

“I remember I had just… I was on the edge of the island. It was… it was a beach just like this one.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I was on the beach when I found… I found… there was… another centaur. A female. I’d never seen a female centaur before. 

“Her horse half was jet black and I remember that she had… she had golden hair. I remember thinking that… that she was more beautiful than all the female demigods I’d trained.”

“You look at your female demigods that way?” Annabeth asked incredulously. 

“When I was young, occasionally. Not now. Not for a thousand years. Anyway, she was… she was beautiful. I remember I brought her home to my private dwellings and… and fixed her up. 

“When she woke up, she was… she was so grateful, or at least seemed that way. I remember she practically kissed me out of gratitude. I told her that she shouldn’t… shouldn’t do that. I said we barely knew each other.

“I asked her where she came from. She said it didn’t matter. She asked me where I was from and… and I told her. She asked me what I did and I told her I trained… trained demigods.”

“Wait wait wait,” Will interrupted. “You just  _ told _ her that?”

“Yes. Times were different then. If you told someone you were a demigod, they  _ believed  _ you. You didn’t get locked up or experimented on. Sure, they may have tried to recruit you into an army, but that was really the worst the mortals ever did.” Chiron cleared his throat. “Anyway, back to the point. She… kind of seemed to… know? I’m having difficulty putting it into words but… she seemed just… totally unsurprised no matter what I told her.” He paused again, seemingly lost in thought. “... We talked a lot that night… and that week… and that month. I remember… I remember it feeling just wonderful to be with her. 

“And we fell in love. If I wasn’t with my demigods, I was with her. We spent so much time together it became a joke among camp. I didn’t… I was too in love to care.” Chiron swallowed heavily and closed his eyes. “I didn’t think much of anything of it. It was just romance and love, what could go wrong? I hadn’t done anything to upset Aphrodite or her sons. I didn’t think there was any way for anything to go wrong.

“But… it did. One day… I woke up and went to go find her, as I usually did. And she… she was gone.” Chiron’s eyes were almost visibly wet. 

“What happened to her?” Annabeth asked, her voice a tiny whisper.

“... I didn’t know. She didn’t even leave a note. I… I remember that after the initial search for her I couldn’t even leave my cave for days. I think if not for one demigod, a son of Aphrodite, I would have stayed there forever. That boy was one of the softest children I’ve ever taught.” Chiron paused. “... He didn’t last very long.”

“... Oh, gods,” Will whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Did you ever find her?” Annabeth asked.

“... Yes.” Chiron paused and hung his head. It was a very long pause. “She… she came back one day, many moons later and… and… revealed she was… she was the lady Iris.”

“Lady Iris… the rainbow goddess?”

“Yes.”

“And… I’m guessing she came because…”

“Yes.” He gave another long pause. “She had a little baby boy… a little baby colt. With a horn on its forehead.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. A lone tear tracked its way down Chiron’s face. Annabeth stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around him. “... I’m sorry. I really am.”

“It’s not… not much of a matter. Not one you need to worry about, anyway, at least. Not with what you have on your plate.”

“I know. I just feel bad for you.”

“... You always had more empathy in you than you let on,” Chiron murmured.

Will joined Annabeth in hugging Chiron. “So… now we know that if Iris breeds with a centaur, it makes a unicorn. Always good to know.”

“... I suppose so,” Chiron continued miserably. “Although I don’t know why anyone would ever need that information.”

“I’m sure there’d be some situations when you could use it.” Will patted Chiron’s back and pulled away. 

Chiron shook his head. “How about you go think about those situations in your cabins? I need some time by myself.”

Will nodded. “... Okay. Take care of yourself, okay?”

Chiron nodded. Will ran off.

Annabeth let go of him. “Are you sure you want me to leave as well?”

Chiron nodded. “Yes, please. You know I care for you but… I need some…” Chiron swallowed. “I need some time.”

Annabeth’s brow furrowed. “Okay. I… I’ll see you in the morning?”

“See you in the morning,” Chiron whispered. 

When she looked back, she thought she saw a tear trace down Chiron’s face in the thin light.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the overdramatic title lmao. I just ripped a random line out of the story because I didn't know what else to title it.


End file.
